


the great british baking bros

by ewmiche



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - College/University, Bucky Barnes & Steve Rogers Friendship, Bucky Barnes Is a Good Bro, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov Friendship, How Do I Tag, Multi, Pepper Potts Is a Good Bro, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, Steve Rogers Is a Good Bro, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Gets a Hug, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, enjoy ig, everyone is a good bro apparently, steve rogers is a dumbass
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:02:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24708778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ewmiche/pseuds/ewmiche
Summary: in which there is baking, dumbassery, and mediocre college experiencesother titles include:how steve rogers got a boyfriend through netflixso you think you can bake?using paul hollywood and mary berry to obtain romance: a saga
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Natasha Romanov (background), Maria Hill/Sam Wilson (background), Pepper Potts & Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov, Steve Rogers & Sam Wilson, Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Kudos: 23





	the great british baking bros

**Author's Note:**

> unbeta'd bc i literally have never written a fic before, so all errors are mine :) idk what this is ngl  
> 

Steve was tired. And by tired, he meant knock-over-your-nightstand-fall-into-bed-fully-clothed tired. The type of tired where, if you were to open your eyes, all you would see is black, and all you would feel is dizzy. The type of tired where you forget to text your best friend goodnight for the first time in three years, and he gets so concerned that he climbs into your bedroom at three in the morning. Which is what led him here. With Bucky sitting at his desk, watching who knows what on  _ his _ Netflix account, at full volume. 

“Buck. Turn it down!” Steve mumbled, as he rolled over. 

“No can do, Stevie. I am keeping you awake until you realize what day it is.” Bucky spins around and claps his hands together, making an odd, garbled sound. He scowls down at his left arm before continuing, 

“Steeeve! I know you can’t fall asleep, not with the Great British Baking Show on.” Tilting his head, Steve can vaguely hear the sound of Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry on his laptop, but he stays still. 

“Dude! I know you’re awake! I saw you look to see who's cake roll was the best.” Bucky practically yells, before shaking Steve frantically with his good arm. 

“Look man, I don’t know what the _hell_ you were doing at work so … late? Early? Whatever. I don’t know what the hell you were doing at work _at this hour_. But today is the day!” Bucky says, jumping on top of him, shaking him until Steve finally gives in and gets up. 

“I don’t know what today is,” He says as he pulls his shirt over his head, “But I do know that I have a class in about 5 hours, so I’m getting as much sleep as humanly possible.” Steve rolls over, and Bucky sighs in defeat. 

“I honestly can’t believe you Stevie. Today is Stark’s birthday. Like  _ Tony  _ Stark? Like the guy you’ve had a crush on since 9th grade chemistry? Lik-” His tangent is cut off by a pillow to the face, and Steve rolls his eyes. 

It’s 11:30, and Steve Rogers has missed his psych class. Again. Because he was too tired to get up. Again. He looks up at the lecture hall desperately, before turning around and running smack into a small, disgruntled man. 

“Ah, sorry man. I’m a little out of it toda-” He starts, “Wait. Tony? Tony Stark?” The man looks up at him, a confused look on his face. His hair is ruffled, and he has bags under his eyes. 

“Yes? Do we know each other?”

“Uh, yeah. I think? I knew you at least, I mean, we went to the same highschool? We never talked though. You were my lab partner in nin-” He’s cut off by Tony’s hand on his mouth, and Steve can feel a steady blush rising on his face. 

“Look blondie, as much as I would love to stand here and listen to you tell me all about how you remember me in highschool - like about a million other people - I’ve got other matters to take care of. ” Tony walks off, leaving a dumbfounded Steve, blushing and dazed, standing by himself in the courtyard. 

“Happy Birthday by the way!” He yells after Tony, but he can’t hear him. If he did, he didn’t care enough to turn around. 

Steve remembers exactly when he fell in love with Tony. The exact month, day, minute, second. He remembers the ninth grade, seeing a tiny head pop out from behind a giant physics book, hazel eyes shining through a mop of brown hair. He remembers asking shyly asking for help, he remembers spending every waking hour thinking about him. What he doesn’t remember, however, is when Tony stopped loving him. Or, for that matter, if he ever started. Steve walks in a daze back home, where he finds his best friend slumped at his desk, fast asleep. 

“Buck,” he says softly, “James?” Bucky snorts and turns his head over, revealing the imprints of the  _ asdfgh _ keys on his cheek. Steve pushes his cheek with his index finger and chuckles to himself before crashing, rather loudly, into his cheap dorm-room bed. 

“Ah!” Bucky startles, holding his laptop as a club. “Don’t do that! I could totally just kill you one day, you know.” 

“You wouldn’t,” Steve smirks, and turns into his pillow, his voice so muffled that he can barely hear it. “You know, I ran into Tony today?”

“You  _ what _ ? I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear anything above ‘ahdkafhdjk.’” 

“I ran into Tony today. Like physically  _ ran _ into him.” Steve turns to face Bucky and sits up, clutching his pillow to his chest like he did when they were kids. He cringes. 

“Oh.  _ Oh _ . How was it? You didn’t say anything stupid, did you? Please tell me you didn’t say anything stupid.” 

“I said something stupid.”

“Of course you did. Come on, out with it.” Bucky motions with his whole body, shaking his chair. 

“I said ‘hi’ and he put his hand over my mouth and told me to shut up whilst I wished him a happy birthday.” Steve shakes his head while burying himself further into the pillow. 

“Dear lord. Will you ever learn?” Bucky turns back to his (Steve’s) laptop, and Steve peers at the screen, only to find more Great British Baking Show and Mary Berry. 

“Will  _ you  _ ever stop watching that devil of a show?”

“At least this ‘devil’ of a show is teaching me something. What is blundering around like an idiot doing for you?” Upon silence from Steve, Bucky turns around in his chair, pausing the show, and places a hand on Steve’s shoulder. “Look, you either need to man up and go find Stark, confess your undying love for him and live with whatever happens next, or you need to find a rebound and get the hell over him.” 

“Ok.” Steve shrugs. 

“Ok to which part? Because I feel a little unsettled by how easy that was.”

“Ok, let’s go find Tony Stark.” 

“Sweet baby jesus. That was a rhetoric! You ungrateful little jerk. You know that three quarters of the entire NYU student body would love to get in your pants, right? And yet here you are, lamenting over some tiny-ass punk who forgot you existed. How does it feel, Steve? Tell me how does i-” Bucky is cut off by a pillow to the face. “That’s the second time  _ today _ ! Fine, do it. Go find genius boy. Keep in mind though, that I am  _ not _ , I repeat,  _ not  _ helping you with this. ”

“Maybe I will do it by myself! But just know, James Buchanan Barnes, that you are an asshole and I hate you.” And with that, Steve falls asleep and Bucky returns to learning how to bake a lemon torte. 

-

Tony has had a rough morning, to put it lightly. At 23 - 24 now-, he’s already a college graduate running his own company. To the public, his life is running smoothly, a well oiled machine. But in private, well it’s all it takes to get one drop of oil in the machine. At 8:30, Pepper is calling him, wishing him a happy birthday, and telling him that he’s late. At 8:32, Natasha is somehow in his apartment with a cupcake and a two-piece suit and tie. At 8:40, he’s outside and waiting for Happy, brushing cupcake crumbs off his chest. At 9:00, he’s in Greenwich Village, walking to the lecture hall at NYU. 

Something feels familiar about NYU, Tony thinks. He vaguely remembers something in highschool, somebody wanting to go here. That was before he fast-tracked his highschool career and moved to Boston to go to MIT. He walks a little faster, trying and failing to avoid getting trampled by college students. He enters the hall early; it’s only 9:15, and sits at the front of the room, staring blankly at all of the empty seats. 

“Mr. Stark?” A voice breaks the silence, and Tony turns his head toward the noise. 

“That would be me.” He grins, extending a hand to a woman, likely a college student. She’s wearing a steel gray blazer and a similarly colored pencil skirt. She has long, black hair, dyed red at the tips, and a smirk that says “I could easily kill you if I wanted to.”. She returns his handshake and sits on the desk. 

“Great. You’re not scheduled until 10:00, so feel free to roam the campus and/or stay here. I’m Gamora, by the way. It’s a pleasure.” Her heels click together as she swings her legs back and forth. “I’d be happy to show you around. ” 

Tony agrees. They walk around, chatting politely. Gamora points out different sites and restaurants, pointing out a particular cafe that she and her boyfriend, Peter (he’s training to be an astronaut!) , like to go. After a while, Tony checks his watch, noting that it’s already 9:45. 

“Should we get back to the hall now?” They walk in silence back to the hall, and Tony checks his phone. He has 2 missed calls and one text from Pepper, detailing that he forgot his cue cards at the house. They reach the hall, and Gamora leaves, excusing herself to get to her class. A young, bouncy kid jumps into the hall, and introduces himself as Peter Parker. 

“Hi, Mr.Stark! I’m here to help you set up. You know, cue cards and all that. I’m so excited for your talk, by the way,” He looks at Tony, “I literally only signed up for this class because I heard you were giving a lecture, and then Gamora said you might not come because of complications with SI, and I got so worried, and I raced over here, and then she texted me that it was fine so I’ve just been sitting outside. I probably could’ve come in here, I mean, there’s so many chairs in here, but I didn’t know if there was a class and-” He stops when he hears Tony laughing, and furrows his brow. 

“My god, kid. You really do know how to talk, don’t you?” Tony looks at him, “I don’t have cue cards, but thanks for the offer.” 

“ohmygod I’m gonna hear Tony Stark improv a speech! I’m so excited!” Peter says, seemingly to no one. Tony chuckles again, and they make comfortable small talk about Peter’s formula for “super-sticky sticky notes! (they’re really useful, I swear!)” The class files into the hall after about 5 minutes, and Tony leaves Peter to his sticky notes. 

The speech goes about as well as he thought it would, and he takes almost copious amounts of questions after. Tony leaves the lecture hall at 11:29. He’s late to catch Happy by the entrance, so he walks fast. He looks down at his feet, pushes his sunglasses higher on his nose, and runs a hand through his hair. 

His daze is interrupted, rather rudely, he might add, by what seems to be a wall of meat. He looks up, and is face-to-face with Steve Rogers. He nearly faints, and before he can think about it, he finds himself with his hand over the blonde’s mouth, acting like he doesn’t remember the subject of all of his dreams from the past 9 years. He hurries off, trying, and failing to disregard the fact that Steve remembered his birthday.

-

“ _ Ugh _ Bucky! Do you know how many Tony Stark impersonators there are on dating apps?” Steve looks up from his computer, half expecting a sarcastic comment about how Steve doesn’t know how to use computers, and finds Bucky asleep at his desk. Again. He huffs out a sigh and covers him with a flannel shirt, leaving a note that reads, rather aptly, “ _ gone to find the loml, see u @ 5 :) _ .” Steve clambers out of his room, locks the door behind him, and walks downstairs to the small cafe attached to their dorm building. He orders an iced americano and sits down with his laptop. 

Three hours later, Steve has managed to find Tony Stark’s personal Instagram, his  _ supposed _ girlfriend Virginia’s facebook, and who he thinks is an ex-russian spy’s food & drink blog. He reads through Natalie’s blog, noting, with a smile, that she mainly just laments about how weak american vodka is. Steve looks out the window on the far end of the cafe to find Sam running by. He quickly grabs his laptop and jogs to meet him. 

“Hey, man,” Sam greets him. Steve pats him on the back, and they fall into a gentler pace. 

“So, how’s your day been?” Steve questions, knowing it’s out of character, and fully expecting Sam to stop in his tracks. He looks over, and sees Sam with his eyes wide, clutching his hand to his chest. 

“Dude, you never ask how my day is. Are you ok? Like, mentally?” Sam waves a hand around Steve’s head to further get his point across. 

“I saw Tony Stark today.” 

“ _ Oh. _ ” There’s a beat of silence before Steve explains what happened, and Sam dissolves into laughter. In between gasps, Steve receives consolations and a few, rather insulting- if you ask him, comments. 

“Man, what I wouldn’t give to have been there when that happened.” At Steve’s dismayed expression, Sam exclaims,

“Don’t worry, your awkwardness is both entertaining and endearing.” He claps a hand on Steve’s back, and they reach Sam’s building. They walk upstairs, and reach his room while Sam recounts a date he had with Maria yesterday. They had gone out for sushi, and Maria had spilled soy sauce all over Sam’s nigiri (“ _ all  _ over, Steve!”). Steve nods and expresses his sympathy, vaguely tuned in, and they turn on an episode of  _ Brooklyn 99 _ . 

Sometime, Somehow, Bucky, Maria, and Maria’s friend Natasha arrive at Sam’s and  _ Brooklyn 99 _ quickly dissolves into a drinking game. Bucky drinks every time Gina talks about herself, Natasha drinks every time Rosa threatens someone, Maria drinks whenever Hitchcock and Scully eat, Sam drinks anytime Jake and Amy argue, and Steve has to drink every single time that Holt appears (You’re the  _ captain _ , Steve! It’s only fair!) Steve tries to argue that Holt had way too much screen time in the first season for his part to be anywhere near fair, but to no avail. Natasha was able to hold her alcohol surprisingly well, and pulled a second bottle of Russian vodka from her purse halfway through the 7th episode. By the time they finish, Steve can barely open his eyes, and Natasha offers to let him crash at her place, in the building next door. Drunkenly, Steve agrees, and she and Bucky, both still strangely sober, haul him to her apartment. He barely remembers crashing into her couch, and falling asleep to Natasha and Buck’s soft laughter. 

Steve wakes up to a sharp light in his eyes and a sharp pain in his head. 

“Ow.” He grunts, rolling over. He’s vaguely aware of the smell of roses, and a blanket over him that is much too soft to be his. He sits up, and is met with the unimpressed faces of Natasha Romanoff and -Virginia Potts? 

“Uh, hi?” Steve extends his hand to Virginia, “Steve Rogers,” He introduces himself. 

“Pepper Potts. Lovely to meet you.” Virginia- Pepper says, and his ears ring. “I’m so glad you got to know Nat so  _ well _ .” She continues, watching Steve roll back onto the couch, “She swears you guys did nothing, but judging by the fact that you’re wearing her trademark ‘I slept with you, sorry’ shirt, I think otherwise.” Pepper looks at Natasha, a soft smirk on her face, and whispers something that Steve can’t quite hear. Nat looks over at him, stoic and extremely well dressed, and says,

“He’s not my type.” Steve stutters, feigning offense, and she elaborates, “I don’t like blondes. They’re too free-willed.” With that, she turns and walks out of the apartment, yelling “You can keep the shirt. I need a new one anyway.” Steve sits up again at that, and realizes that he is, in fact, wearing an XX-L faded t-shirt with a graphic of Captain America on it. He rolls his eyes, and looks back at Pepper, who has busied herself turning on the TV. 

“I don’t normally do this, you know.” He says, feeling his ears go red. 

“What? Get blackout drunk and pass out at a might-as-well-be stranger’s apartment?” She finds the news channel and turns her head towards him, “I’d hope not.” She pulls her strawberry-blonde hair into a tight bun, and shrugs her coat on. “You seem like a nice guy, Steve. Let’s hope next time we meet, you don’t look like you just wrestled an elephant.” She smiles, opening the door.. “Your pal- Bucko? I think his name was, is here too. Please get him out, he smells like a pet store and hasn’t moved in 3 hours. Also, I hope you weren’t planning on stealing from Nat. She can and  _ will _ kill you.” With that, she’s gone, leaving a dumbfounded Steve sitting on the couch. 

**Author's Note:**

> ok so basically i was bored, this is drabble, expect like 3 or 4 chapters out of this ty and gn <3


End file.
